I am a sociology major college graduate. I am fascinated by human beings and how we interact with one another. If there is one thing that consumes my thoughts more than anything else, it is self-reflection. In the last five years I have lived in 4 cities, and 3 states. Santa Clara, San Jose, Vancouver, Washington, and Inverness, Florida. Every place was different, every city/town was different, as was every state. But the move to Inverness has set everything on its head.
I don’t really recall how I reacted to people who were unknown to me as a child. Being the 3rd of 4 kids, I tended to follow the crowd. I did whatever I was told or simply followed the lead of my siblings. When I went to college, I hung with my group - my roommates, my classmates. Colleges can be very closed societies so I never thought much about it. After that I was off to Santa Clara and began the work of creating a new home. I attributed so much of the challenge of building relationships in this new phase of my life to a west coast/California phenomena. Now I’m not so sure. Santa Clara is a bedroom town to San Jose and San Jose is a very large city. I made friends, never easily, but I had a group to which I clung. Many times I felt alone, without my family nearby but I carried on. I made friends as a young mother, as a returning college student, as a teacher and co-worker. I collected my people along the way and rarely let go of them. We got together for coffee, for lunch, for dinner, or social events. But the idea of making friends with strangers that you might meet along your meanderings was foreign to me. I was fascinated by people who could pull this off.
Californians, at least in the San Jose area, did not make eye contact and there was no idle conversation in the grocery line, so how was it that you start up that initial interchange? As the years went by, I stopped assessing and evaluating this oddity because it never seems to change. When I traveled back to Iowa or Florida, I was always struck by the “friendliness” of other locales.
As I made the move to Vancouver, I experienced much of the same social atmosphere as I had in Santa Clara. People were a little more friendly but there was always something that was held back. It seemed that you were granted access to the inner circle with someone else’s membership. I was freely accepted at my sister’s church because I was with my sister. But the experience was the same in grocery stores in my neighborhood as it had been in California. In my reflection at the time, I chalked it up to “west coast” behavior.
Fast forward to Inverness, Florida, a town of 7,000 people. Compare that to 200,000 in Vancouver and well over a million in San Jose. The first thing I was struck with during my first visit was how friendly the people were. People gain and hold eye contact, they smile, they talk to one another There is an openness that I have never experienced before. There is also less attachment to individuals. You no longer need to cling to your friends to feel accepted so there are fewer coffee and lunch dates. I have met people in the grocery stores (especially at the deli counter), at festivals, and in churches. We tell each other our stories; where are you from, what brought you here, how did you find Inverness? I no longer worry about going anywhere alone and having to introduce myself because I know there is a friend waiting for me there. I have never felt so welcomed or embraced by a town before. I bring my eye contact and smile wherever I go and in return I am gifted with friendship, camaraderie, and conversation. Is it small town/big city or east coast/west coast? The sociologist in me says it’s the small town experience. It is the necessary dependence on one another to get your needs met. In the big city you simply buy whatever you need. But in a smaller community, everything is not available and at your fingertips. You have to ask for help or recommendations from those who have been around before you got here. You learn to appreciate the Inverness that is and was and work to keep pieces of it intact before it is also lost to increased population and indifference.
As I reflect on this, I feel walls around me crumbling. I see and hear myself starting conversations with strangers and it amazes me. Who is this woman that now, after all these years, has the courage and comfort to say hello and trust that a return hello and a story will come back to me. I am still me at my core but this is a better, nicer, more welcoming me. I no longer have the need to protect myself with my family or friends around me. I am enough. I am welcome, appreciated, and making a difference in the lives of even strangers in this, my new community.
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